SpaceX launch aborted seconds before liftoff

SpaceX launch aborted seconds before liftoff

SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 sits on Pad 40 of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Titusville, Florida.

The launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — the first attempt by private sector to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station — was aborted in the final seconds before liftoff from Cape Canaveral early on Saturday.

According to the Associated Press, the engine ignition sequence for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the unmanned Dragon spacecraft, fired at the three-second mark, but the onboard computers automatically shut down.

Instead of blasting off on a delivery mission to the ISS, the rocket stayed on its launch pad in a cloud of engine exhaust, the AP wrote.

"We are scrubbed for today," National Geographic quoted a SpaceX official as saying during a live online broadcast of the launch. "We won't be planning to launch again this morning. We only had a one-second window, and we've obviously missed that."

The next window for launch was May 22 at 3:44 a.m. EDT, the Hawthorne company said.

Robert Pearlman, editor of the space-history and artifacts website collectSPACE.com., called the Dragon test mission a potentially historic milestone for the future of space flight.

"It could set the stage for not just a series of cargo deliveries," he said, "but for American astronaut deliveries to the space station, as well as eventually establish a commercial space flight industry here in the United States outside of just satellite launches."